Japanese Patent No. 4141810 (Reference 1) discloses a type of fluid control valve. As illustrated in FIG. 1 of Reference 1, the fluid control valve includes a valve housing (first and second valve bodies 11 and 12) in which a flow path (configured to have a fluid inlet path 17, a communication path 19, and a fluid outlet path 18) having a gas inlet and a gas outlet is formed, a drive device (an electromagnetic actuator 16) attached to the valve housing, a valve shaft (a plunger 16a) which is connected to an output shaft of the drive device and moves in an axial direction in the valve housing, and a valve body 15 which is attached so as to radially extend with respect to an axis of the valve shaft, and which opens and closes the flow path by being moved with the valve shaft so that one side surface moves away from or comes into contact with a valve seat (seat portion 20) formed in the flow path of the valve housing.
In the above-described fluid control valve disclosed in Reference 1, when the valve housing is attached to an attachment target member in a state where the valve shaft is tilted to a horizontal plane (for example, a state where the fluid outlet path 18 is located on a lower side in FIG. 1 of Reference 1), while the valve body is in contact with (sits on) the valve seat, a fluid (for example, water) inside the flow path collects in the lowest portion (for example, a left side of the valve seat) of the flow path in some cases as the fluid spills over an upper surface portion of the valve body. In this case, if the water freezes, there is a possibility that the fluid control valve may not open.
In order to solve this problem, a method may be considered which operates the frozen and stuck valve body by improving a drive force of the drive device. However, the method causes the drive device to be increased in size and to be very expensive in cost.